“That’s you, Bill,” returned Black Dog, “you’re in the right of it, Billy. I’ll
have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I’ve took such a liking to; and
we’ll sit down, if you please, and talk square, like old shipmates.”
When I returned with the rum, they were already seated on either side of the
captain’s breakfast-table—Black Dog next to the door and sitting sideways so as
to have one eye on his old shipmate and one, as I thought, on his retreat.
He bade me go and leave the door wide open. “None of your keyholes for me,
sonny,” he said; and I left them together and retired into the bar.
For a long time, though I certainly did my best to listen, I could hear nothing
but a low gattling; but at last the voices began to grow higher, and I could pick
up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain.
“No, no, no, no; and an end of it!” he cried once. And again, “If it comes to
swinging, swing all, say I.”